Some of the flowers in my garden persist despite a few frosty nights. The weather has been too inhospitable for much deadheading or trimming of these plants. The time has come to let this garden season go, but I will not pull the annuals until every last blossom is spent.
I will cherish this year’s garden for years to come. This was the year their bounty helped sustain me.
I feel so lucky that I’ve had flowers blooming in my garden for seven months this year. The forecast does not bode well for the garden in the next ten days. There are predictions for several nights dipping into the 30’s, along with the possibility for a little snow next weekend. Some of the tender plants in the garden may not survive the coming week. In light of that possibility, I thought I’d take a few more pictures than I usually do for my garden blog posts.
This week I’ve been trying to build my video skills. Hearkening to the title of this blog, there’s been plenty of intensity without mastery along the way. My interest in video is to capture more of the magic of the sort of moments I’m drawn to photograph.
I love watching the flowers in my garden flutter in the breeze. Here’s a little YouTube clip of my fuschia basket holding its own against this blustery September day:
I’m lingering more in the garden because its days for 2017 are coming to a close. Inevitably the weather will turn too harsh to sustain these flowers. The unknown is how long the growing season will last. The first frost could come anytime between the middle of September and the beginning of November.
Last year the flowers were still in bloom a week after Halloween, but I cannot depend on a similar season this year. The temperature dipped to the high forties during a couple nights this week. My hibiscus bush is growing new leaves for a second bloom, but I don’t think the warmth will endure long enough for an encore bloom like last year.
My garden continues to show its vigor. I was a bit late with sowing sunflower seeds this year. They’ve steadily climbed skyward, but I was beginning to fear that they would not bloom in time. This week I was relieved to see some sunflower buds. I planted several varieties this year, including Teddy Bear, Lemon Queen, and Autumn Beauty (all of these seeds were Mother’s Day gifts I received, by the way). I also sowed a few mammoth Russian sunflower seeds, the dollar store classic with huge blooms, but it appears that none of those seeds germinated. All three of the large sunflower plants in my garden look to be multi-bloomers, and the mammoth Russian devotes all of its energy to one bloom per plant.
Intensity Without Mastery 